Rating: 
Summary: Wow!
Review: I've read this book 3 times now. The third time, I just picked it up and opened it somewhere in the middle, read a few lines, and was once again hopelessly hooked. I plowed through it, unable to put it down, and when I got to the end, I needed more. So I read from the beginning to the point in the middle I had started from. No book has ever done this to me before! Orson Scott Card is a superb SF writer, and this book (in my humble opinion) is definitely his most excellent--involuntarily, it makes you think. Card exposes so many sides of human nature--I just can't think of words to describe it. Read It!
Rating:
Summary: strong world building tale
Review: Over a millennium ago, humans established a religious colony on Imakulata. The newcomers keep as far away from the native Geblics, abuse the empathic Gauntish, and enslave the slow thinking Dwelfs. Since the beginning of the star ship landing, the Heptarchs have ruled humanity on this orb.However, concern surfaces over The Starship Captain's prophecy. The prediction is that the seventh seventh seventh daughter or the 343rd since the first Heptarch will be the mother of Kristos, either the savior or destroyer of the human race. Patience is the daughter of the rightful Heptarch, Lord Peace, slave to the pretender, King Oruc. Peace and his slave Angel teach Patience to live up to her name in order to avoid war. When Lord Peace dies, Patience knows her protection died with her father's death. Before the Oruc can end the prophecy by killing her, she flees. Her adventure begins, but will she fulfill the prophecy while on the run? WYRMS is Orson Scott Card at his world building best as he creates a complex social system with several races that feel sociologically authentic. As he always does Mr. Card poses moral dilemmas that seem almost paradoxical as he nudges his readers to consider right vs. wrong, but offers no simple turpitude. There is plenty of action and the cast, especially the heroine, is very complex and brave so it is easy to see why this is an award-winning tale. Harriet Klausner
Rating:
Summary: strong world building tale
Review: Over a millennium ago, humans established a religious colony on Imakulata. The newcomers keep as far away from the native Geblics, abuse the empathic Gauntish, and enslave the slow thinking Dwelfs. Since the beginning of the star ship landing, the Heptarchs have ruled humanity on this orb. However, concern surfaces over The Starship Captain's prophecy. The prediction is that the seventh seventh seventh daughter or the 343rd since the first Heptarch will be the mother of Kristos, either the savior or destroyer of the human race. Patience is the daughter of the rightful Heptarch, Lord Peace, slave to the pretender, King Oruc. Peace and his slave Angel teach Patience to live up to her name in order to avoid war. When Lord Peace dies, Patience knows her protection died with her father's death. Before the Oruc can end the prophecy by killing her, she flees. Her adventure begins, but will she fulfill the prophecy while on the run? WYRMS is Orson Scott Card at his world building best as he creates a complex social system with several races that feel sociologically authentic. As he always does Mr. Card poses moral dilemmas that seem almost paradoxical as he nudges his readers to consider right vs. wrong, but offers no simple turpitude. There is plenty of action and the cast, especially the heroine, is very complex and brave so it is easy to see why this is an award-winning tale. Harriet Klausner
Rating: 
Summary: not a simple story
Review: Please don't let someone tell you that Wyrms is just another of Card's super-child books. Also, please don't let them scare you off by saying that it has a gross ending and it's offensive. There is a reason, and if you've read Card before, you surely know that he is never prurient for fun. Wyrms IS a lot like ender, and songmaster, and even Herbert's dune. That doesn't mean that it's the same. Card uses the exceptional child motif to deal with many different themes. In Ender, Card explores self-respect and guilt over things that are or are not your responsibility. In Songmaster, Card explores power and love, and also communication. In Wyrms, Card explores Free will and temptation. The impact of the climactic scene seems to cause such a reaction among people, as it should. However, Card surely used such a wretched situation to even further bring home his point, being that that which often seems and feels so right to the participant can be so wrong in reality. Throughout the book, we are made more and more aware of the influence that the wyrm has on different characters. It takes what it wants and manipulates as it will. It destroys lives. The wyrm can be considered evil. Perhaps not inherently, but definately in it's attitude towards the other inhabitants on the planet. When it sets it's desire on the young girl and she suffers the cranning call, we are given the opportunity to witness one person's struggle with what she knows to be right and what she wants. The desirable is despicable on purpose. That which we want is often that which will destroy us. Card brings the girl to the point where she faces her tempter, and he begins to use her for his purposes, as is his nature. The only problem is that she wants to be used. His control is powerful, and I am left wondering what sort of statement Card is making about humanity in general. Most writers who truly attempt to delve into human nature are not just trying to tell nice stories. Wyrms is not a nice story. It is, however, a good story.
Rating:
Summary: Mind Over Genes
Review: Slavery comes in many forms. Patience, the 13 year old protagonist of this novel, is a nominal slave to the Heptarch, ruler of this far-future world that was colonized by humans thousands of years ago. She is also the seventh seventh seventh daughter of the first Starship Captain, and as such is the subject of a prophesy declaring her to be either the savior or destroyer of the world. In the end, she is more slave to the prophecy than to the Heptarch. Trained from birth in the arts of ruling and courtly intrigue, Patience is an intriguing character, whose real voyage of self-discovery starts with the death of her father. For this world has many different types of denizens that are almost human, gaunts, dwelves, and geblins. As Patience travels the world in search of the Unwyrm, she is forced to meet and interact with each of these races, and finding that each has their own right to life, their own ways of living, even if each of these races seems to be an incomplete copy of humans, and all are subject to overriding desires and commands that originate with the Unwyrm, the true slave-master of the world. Card's themes of free will and moral imperatives to help others are nicely brought forward through his characters' interaction with each other, though at a couple places where he directly explicates some of this philosophy in the discourse of the giant Will, in comes across as a little bit preachy. The world and its biology is a fascinating if somewhat disturbing look at just what life really is, from the perspective of the genes, which folds into and on top of his free will ideas as a built in imperative that none may escape. Some may find the climatic scene highly disturbing, involving rape, murder, and mental coercion in a manner normally considered well outside the pale of normal human actions, but it fits well with both story and theme. Card does not shirk from the implications of his prior story development, and a little reflection on this scene will convince you that this is truly the only way the problems could be resolved that was consistent with the theme Card is presenting, but I do feel that this scene makes this book highly inappropriate for younger readers. But Card fell down a little bit in his conclusion, his continuation of the story after that climatic scene, as it comes across as almost sugar-sweet after all the grimness of the rest of the book, as it proposes an extremely optimistic viewpoint about basic human nature that just doesn't fit. Also a little bit disappointing was the final disposition of the brother-sister gebling kings, as this did not seem to be quite in character for either of them. Some truly original ideas, some decent characters, but in the end I felt the theme came to over-dominate the story, left me with less emotional involvement than was possible, became too much an intellectual probing. Still, worth reading, if only to see what Card can do outside of the Ender series. --- Reviewed by Patrick Shepherd (hyperpat)
Rating:
Summary: mistake by reviewer
Review: The reader from North Carolina who gives this book one star seems to have confused this book with another Card novel, Hart's Hope. This book is an excellent exploration of human nature as well as choice and will. I found the conclusion to be very powerful although disturbing. I would definitely not recommend this book for children because of the sexually explicit nature of the conclusion.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting but ...
Review: This book is a fairly interesting and engrossing read, albeit with the aforementioned yucky scene later on. An interesting plot with lots of twists and turns and surprises. And written in Card's now-familiar style. However, after I had finished it and digested it more, it felt as though Card was trying to be too clever with his reversals and toying with our expectations ... trying too hard to be too "wise." And that stuck with me as kind of annoying, actually. Thus the reduced stars. Still, worth a read.
Rating:
Summary: Super Cool!
Review: This book is the best! I loved it so much. I recomend it to any fans of Science Fiction who aren't afraid to think about philosophy and, of course, science. You'll love the book, and I suggest that you read one chapter twice, or even the book twice. You'll really love it!
Rating:
Summary: This book will gross you out in an entertaining way
Review: This is a very weird book. I don't want to spoil it for you but it reminded me of a certain similiarly titled British horror film. The interaction between humans and animals that Card experimented with in the mid-80's reaches its zenith in this story. Read it on an empty stomach. The story is also little depressing - typical Card grimness from his middle period. You might need a box of tissues. Then go re-read Speaker for the Dead
Rating:
Summary: Another Card magnificent
Review: This is an example of Card's greatness. He writes a story about a 13 year-old girl who has the whieght of the world on her. She is supposed to kill an irresitible enemy. It is about her quest. The enemy (wyrm) is able to influnce thought to the point of making people come to him. they are on a different planet with 3 main species. the Wyrm is the third. It is a great plot with great charecters. A very good, and quick, read.
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